My girlfriend has an HP ZD7000 purchased 11/2004 with all the bells and whistles. Having done some quick digging, I have found more skeletons than I care for in HP’s closet with regards to power jack issues… and have unearthed a ton of additional things to research, but I am laying this out here anyway for any comments that will help me focus my efforts.
In 8/2006, the center pin on the power jack broke off. It was replaced under warranty. I am shocked now, because from what I have read in the last 30 minutes, this is a common problem. The support person had acted like he never heard of this before and kept asking her if she dropped it.
About 2 weeks ago, the connection started acting funny again (as well as being hot as hell, which I see is also a problem). The cord would have to be in a certain position or it would switch to battery. Yesterday it became much worse. Finally today (and I am not sure if this is related) the laptop turned off during normal operation, and upon reboot would not boot into windows. The display had lines and/or dashes across it like the video chip was malfunctioning. The distorted screen was happening right from the getgo (at post/boot screen). She could get into safe mode though, but with the distorted screen.
After a couple of attempts at rebooting into XP, she went back to safe mode. Once in safe mode, she started to run the “check disk” utility. She did not let it finish (it was hanging and she was freaking out because she desperately needed a file off of it) and rebooted. This time it started without the distorted screen. She grabbed the file and the computer shut off again. That has been the end of my troubleshooting (for the time being).
My girlfriend called HP and they said that the first repair was only warranted for 3 months. They said that for $400 they would fix any problem, but again only a 3 month warranty on that. I was originally going to ask if anyone could tell me what success I would have leveraging HP to fix this since they had fixed the same problem before. My brief bit of research shows me I don’t have a snowballs chance in hell of that though.
So here are some questions:
So yeah, long story short, I am going to contact Ken. But I would love to hear anyones elses opinion and/or advice.
Thanks in advance.
In 8/2006, the center pin on the power jack broke off. It was replaced under warranty. I am shocked now, because from what I have read in the last 30 minutes, this is a common problem. The support person had acted like he never heard of this before and kept asking her if she dropped it.
About 2 weeks ago, the connection started acting funny again (as well as being hot as hell, which I see is also a problem). The cord would have to be in a certain position or it would switch to battery. Yesterday it became much worse. Finally today (and I am not sure if this is related) the laptop turned off during normal operation, and upon reboot would not boot into windows. The display had lines and/or dashes across it like the video chip was malfunctioning. The distorted screen was happening right from the getgo (at post/boot screen). She could get into safe mode though, but with the distorted screen.
After a couple of attempts at rebooting into XP, she went back to safe mode. Once in safe mode, she started to run the “check disk” utility. She did not let it finish (it was hanging and she was freaking out because she desperately needed a file off of it) and rebooted. This time it started without the distorted screen. She grabbed the file and the computer shut off again. That has been the end of my troubleshooting (for the time being).
My girlfriend called HP and they said that the first repair was only warranted for 3 months. They said that for $400 they would fix any problem, but again only a 3 month warranty on that. I was originally going to ask if anyone could tell me what success I would have leveraging HP to fix this since they had fixed the same problem before. My brief bit of research shows me I don’t have a snowballs chance in hell of that though.
So here are some questions:
- Do I stand a chance with HP?
- Does it sound like this video and OS issue is related to the power issue?
- I discovered www.ikenfixit.com and am certainly going to explore that option. Seems like a great guy with a great reputation and shop. Before I found that option I was considering paying HP, or unloading the thing on ebay and cutting our losses. I just hope this is not a mainboard issue now.
So yeah, long story short, I am going to contact Ken. But I would love to hear anyones elses opinion and/or advice.
Thanks in advance.
